West Kelowna

Layoffs hit Gorman's mill

A lagging supply has led West Kelowna’s Gorman Bros. Lumber to lay off at least 20 employees.

Nick Arkle, Gorman’s co-CEO, says the mill has cut down its third shift over the past few weeks as it adjusts to a dwindling supply of logs left over from the mountain pine beetle’s massacre of B.C. forests.

Lumber mills have been gobbling up dead pine beetle trees for years, but Arkle says mills are adjusting as they begin to work through all the extra inventory.

At Gorman's, those adjustments have meant significant layoffs to the standby shift.

For more on the layoffs, including why Arkle says it would be "unfair" to keep the employees around, check out the full story on Castanet's sister business news website, Okanagan Edge.